Welcome to Patagonia

First off, we've updated our pictures. The last week in Cuenca, our epic flight, and our first few days in Argentina are all up!

After a very much-needed rest in Cuenca, Ecuador for 5 weeks, we once again hit the road and with a grand change of pace. Patagonia is the southernmost region of both Argentina and Chile, and while we had high hopes for visiting this unique region we were never sure how far south we'd make it after starting in Mexico. Luckily, the travel gods smiled upon us an gave us a cheap flight to the southern edge of civilization, all the way to Ushuaia.

Ushuaia, Argentina is considered by most to be the southernmost city in the world. Further south than South Africa and Australia, we're only 740 miles from Antarctica. Luckily, it's summer here and the weather is a toasty 54 degrees on average. But we've been rewarded with incredible vistas of snowcapped mountains and a myriad of things to do and see. To get here, we took four flights over 48 hours, stopping in Guayaquil, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. We passed our New Year's Eve in Buenos Aires, escaping the airport for a few hours to have a pizza and taste some of the famous Argentinian wine while locals tried to light the streets on fire with homemade fireworks displays: solid layover entertainment.

There's plenty of kickass things to do in Ushuaia. After a day of recovery from our long flight, we decided to jump right in and took one of the popular boat tours of the nearby Beagle Channel, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Channel is speckled with tiny islands, on some of which live colonies of sea lions, penguins, and various species of birds. The boat takes you up close and personal to the bird colonies and sea lions, whom we saw lying around being fat and lazy right up close! Bundling up to guard your body from the wind, you really start to feel like you're in the Antarctic (or at least close), though it was a gorgeous sunny day and the weather couldn't have been better. We'll be heading out to walk with the penguins tomorrow!

Today was a bit colder and cloudier, but after traveling Central America during the rainy season we're pretty much armed for anything. We took a hike just outside of town to the Martial Glacier along the rim of mountains that line the north side of town. The hike was easy but beautiful and even the clouds contributed to the atmosphere. The glacier wasn't much more than a pile of snow on the mountainside, but it's summer so the levels are low, and you could clearly see the paths the glacier has cut into the mountainside over thousands of years. The streams of water pouring down from the melting glacier in almost every direction were beautiful as well.

We've got a few more days on the edge of the continent before we start moving back north, this is the furthest we'll be from home and from here on out we'll just be heading back in your direction... which should make our Mommies very happy. But there's still plenty of Patagonia adventure left!

A Very Cuencan Christmas

It's been another week passed here in Cuenca taking a break from our constant travels. We managed to do some stuff this week which was a slight change of pace. We finished our Christmas shopping, both for each other and for our families. The packages we sent home should arrive sometime before next year's Christmas. We also stopped in at the local bowling alley and arcade just to have some normal, nothing to do with travel fun.

Before we get to Christmas, we should mention our other highly anticipated activity this week: our feast upon the local Andean delicacy, Guinea Pig. Now, before you judge us for eating your childhood pet, we have been adventurous eaters on this trip, and we had been excited to give this a try. Cuy is a delicacy here and you see them being bought live at the markets and roasted on spickets.

Some things are easy to figure out, but we will never understand why Guinea Pig is considered remotely edible. Of all the crazy things we've eaten, this was the one that pushed the mercury straight out of the grossness meter! After getting over the site of the still intact eyes, teeth, and claws, you battle through a salty crunchy skin to the layer of thick fat before finding a thin layer of very dark meat. The taste wasn't the worst thing, but the grease and fat doomed us to stay in bed for the rest of the day. Never again!

After purging our bodies of rodent meat, we focused on having a great Christmas. The big tradition here in Cuenca is the procession that takes place for a big chunk of the day on Christmas Eve. It was an interesting parade that was focused primarily on children, who dressed in all sorts of fun costumes and walked the streets with their families. Some rode horses or donkeys or sat inside makeshift cars decorated with hanging fruit and other items. Floats carried singers and dancers and people dressed as angels or biblical characters. There's always a lot of dancing and music here in Latin America when there's a festival on.

Our Christmas Day was definitely different than normal, but we really enjoyed it. First off, it was like 80 degrees out and as much as we don't miss the cold weather, it just didn't feel too Christmasy! We also missed our families a lot. But we made a huge breakfast, pancakes with honey and bananas, bacon and scrambled eggs. We opened some small gifts that we bought for each other, Rich got a Budweiser and Kendra a pen! So exciting! We spent the rest of the day drinking mimosas, gorging on chocolate, and just relaxing.

All in all it turned out to be a great day and not a bad way to spend the holidays in our own apartment before we hit the road again this week to head south... FAR south.

Cuenca: The Revenge

This week we continued our main task of doing nothing much of anything, and we feel that we have successfully achieved all that we desired. While it is true that Rich continued to take a few Spanish classes, and Kendra took a few photos, the rest of our daily time was spent in a few new books, a few new recipes, and one or two new TV crime show episodes.

Toward the beginning of the week we ventured out with a few older expats to the edge of Cajas National Park for a trout lunch served with traditional Cuencan sides of habas with aji sauce (large gray lima beans with mild chili sauce) and mote pillo (large corn kernels cooked with eggs and various seasonings). The area was absolutely beautiful and we definitely have intentions to return to hike before we leave.

We also took a mandatory Christmas-time trip to the local mall, where we observed the following oddities: seven straight aisles of nothing but top-to-bottom toy cars, restaurant-grade deep fryers for sale at the JC Penney's equivalent, and live children enclosed in giant inflatable clear plastic balls – all of which are in our pictures for your viewing pleasure. Some things when you travel are just too weird...

Just as many of you have been braving the cold and snow to prepare for Christmas, we have been braving the horribly intense 75 degree sunny weather. Kendra sadly forsook her plans to make a paper Christmas tree when faced with a green construction paper shortage at the local libreria and we opted for an 18-inch mini fake tree and put our crafty skills toward popcorn strings and paper ornaments. We have already received some cards and packages which are now practically overtaking the tree, just as Christmas should be. Although, for some sick reason, we are still waiting for the snow... doesn't seem like December without it.

Un Poco Mas de Cuenca

We don't have a whole lot to update these days because we've been passing most of our time doing a whole lot of nothing, it's outstanding!

It's been very relaxing to be able to put our bags away and shower without sandals on. Cuenca is a beautiful city and the people are friendly which makes our current situation all the more amiable. Besides sleeping late and dragging our asses out of the apartment occasionally to acquire food, we are in fact involved in some things beyond just sustinence.

Rich has been taking more spanish classes and gets frequent compliments from the locals about how well he speaks spanish. He also loves the free coffee the school supplies at all times. Kendra finished her weaving course, learning how to weave on a different type of loom that she used in Guatemala. She made a beautiful wall hanging out of thick wool and managed to speak enough spanglish with her instructor to understand that she was an above average student.

We also have been cooking ourselves senseless, which is great because cooking in hostels is very difficult. We have a big kitchen -- with an oven, a big rarity here -- and the traditional markets in town offer amazing fruits and veggies and fresh chicken and meat. Some highlights have been pasta and meatballs, homemade granola and applesauce, and cinnamon rolls. We're going to be taking a cooking class next week so hopefully we can continue to wow ourselves, a challenging task given how ridiculously awesome we are.

Other than that, we've spent some time with a great group of friends we've met and have just dug hanging out and taking a little vacation from our vacation. What could be better?

Oh, and Chicago, it's about 75 degrees here. Everyday.

Cuenca: Week 1

Over the past seven days we have settled into our new short-term apartment in Cuenca and made our temporary home for the holiday season. Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador with 267,000 people in the city proper and another 200,000 in the metro area. Located in the southern end of the country, in the Andean foothills, the city was built around four rivers that all flow toward the Amazon jungle, which adds to the charm of the city when you cross the frequent pedestrian bridges that pass over a handful local residents washing laundry in the gentle rolling water.

We were lucky enough to find a fully furnished, all included, apartment right outside of the historic downtown center. Most importantly, we were lucky enough to secure a place with a working oven! While we are here through the end of December, we wanted to provide weekly updates, instead of just posting on particular experiences.

We moved into our apartment last Friday, missing Thanksgiving by one day. We decided to hold off on celebrating Thanksgiving until we had full access to our kitchen. So Saturday, we spent 3 hours shopping for our food at the local market and the supermarket (two separate trips) and 7 hours baking the biggest feast of our trip yet. To our dismay the only turkey you can find in Cuenca is 20lbs and frozen solid, a little much for the two of us and our friend Andy. So we opted to by a 5lb fresh chicken instead. Another noteworthy substitution was the mango bread pudding for pumpkin pie. Rich and Kendra battled it out over peas vs. corn and the fresh peas won. The star of the show was the homemade stuffing, which was absolutely amazing (how could it not be with the slab of butter that was holding it together)! We thankfully did not have to move after such an overwhelming meal as on Sunday the entire country was ordered to remain at home for the national census, when local students visit every household in one day. A little different from home for sure.

We took the extra time we had on Sunday to research and book our next destination on our permacation adventure: Patagonia! More on that to come in January.

However, in the meantime before we can play with the penguins, Rich has signed up for another round of Spanish classes and Kendra has already begun more weaving classes (check out the pictures of her half finished wall hanging).

We look forward to sharing our more “normal” life with everyone in the weekly posts to come...but just to give you a hint, it is like waking up to a sunny Saturday morning every day. Tough life.